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pegkerrWe convened at Cousin Kerry's house today. This was perfectly calculated to please everyone: they have a lovely house with a fine backyard equipped with a patio deck with furniture overlooking the garden, a trampoline, a swing, a basketball net and a hot tub. The kids kept up a steady bouncing on the trampoline for hours, but eventually, a subset of us decided to go to the beach, so we drove, in shifts, to Torrey Pines State Park Beach. Rob stayed, but the girls and I went.
I cannot remember specifically the last time that I walked into the ocean. Years. Decades, possibly. The one time I definitely remember was the trip taken to the east coast, when I was nine. And there was my travel across Europe, which included time spent in Greece, when I was twenty-one. There were probably times since then, but not any that I remember in much detail.
You must understand: I grew up near Lake Michigan, one of the largest lakes in the world, and so when I stand on a beach and see an expanse of water, so large that I can't see the opposite shore, I imagine it to be fresh water.
And yet I remember the taste of the sea. Taste it once, and then touch a few drops of that salty bitterness to the tongue again, years later, and the memory returns with a jolt: oh yes. The sea.
Rob's sisters Shannon and Erika and I stood in water knee deep and laughed as the waves washed over our legs. Strands of seaweed continually wound themselves around our ankles, and the pull of the water back from the receding waves kept making the sand shift and slither out from beneath our feet, so we could not simply stand, but kept walking toward the waves and stumbling back. Fiona had borrowed a boogie board and was rapidly making friends with the waves, but it took me awhile to immerse myself entirely. At first it was cold, but then as the water splashed further and further up my waist, I stopped sucking in a breath and standing on my toes as each wave came. I deliberately turned my back to the shore and walked in until I was wet from head to foot.
I spent a half hour watching the waves, walking into them, riding them back toward shore and walking out again as they hissed their way back to the sea. The sand was soft under my feet, but interspersed with hard smoothnesses--pebbles? Shells? The light shifted on the waves, sliding across the ever-changing surface, and the infinite variations of the interplay of gray and green and white reminded me of volcanic glass. A milky froth floated on the water's surface, loose strands of seaweed drifted just underneath, and in the depths, millions of suspended particles of sand caught the sunlight in ever-shifting golden flashes, like the flecks in goldstone. The tops of the waves shifted in cascades of curves, and then became angular, then jagged, and then crashed into foaming white power that rushed and tumbled and roared toward the shore. I walked out farther. The waves now lifted my feet from the sand and then dropped me back again, and the waves now crested over my head. Unafraid, I watched them come toward me, one after another, with a regular timeless rhythm which I knew would be relentless whether I ducked or ignored them or tried to turn to flee. Like breaths, I thought, like the rocking caresses of Mother Earth. I spat out the salty taste . . . and this is the taste of her blood, a flavor that all her children instantly recognize whenever they taste it again, no matter how many years it has been.
I cannot remember specifically the last time that I walked into the ocean. Years. Decades, possibly. The one time I definitely remember was the trip taken to the east coast, when I was nine. And there was my travel across Europe, which included time spent in Greece, when I was twenty-one. There were probably times since then, but not any that I remember in much detail.
You must understand: I grew up near Lake Michigan, one of the largest lakes in the world, and so when I stand on a beach and see an expanse of water, so large that I can't see the opposite shore, I imagine it to be fresh water.
And yet I remember the taste of the sea. Taste it once, and then touch a few drops of that salty bitterness to the tongue again, years later, and the memory returns with a jolt: oh yes. The sea.
Rob's sisters Shannon and Erika and I stood in water knee deep and laughed as the waves washed over our legs. Strands of seaweed continually wound themselves around our ankles, and the pull of the water back from the receding waves kept making the sand shift and slither out from beneath our feet, so we could not simply stand, but kept walking toward the waves and stumbling back. Fiona had borrowed a boogie board and was rapidly making friends with the waves, but it took me awhile to immerse myself entirely. At first it was cold, but then as the water splashed further and further up my waist, I stopped sucking in a breath and standing on my toes as each wave came. I deliberately turned my back to the shore and walked in until I was wet from head to foot.
I spent a half hour watching the waves, walking into them, riding them back toward shore and walking out again as they hissed their way back to the sea. The sand was soft under my feet, but interspersed with hard smoothnesses--pebbles? Shells? The light shifted on the waves, sliding across the ever-changing surface, and the infinite variations of the interplay of gray and green and white reminded me of volcanic glass. A milky froth floated on the water's surface, loose strands of seaweed drifted just underneath, and in the depths, millions of suspended particles of sand caught the sunlight in ever-shifting golden flashes, like the flecks in goldstone. The tops of the waves shifted in cascades of curves, and then became angular, then jagged, and then crashed into foaming white power that rushed and tumbled and roared toward the shore. I walked out farther. The waves now lifted my feet from the sand and then dropped me back again, and the waves now crested over my head. Unafraid, I watched them come toward me, one after another, with a regular timeless rhythm which I knew would be relentless whether I ducked or ignored them or tried to turn to flee. Like breaths, I thought, like the rocking caresses of Mother Earth. I spat out the salty taste . . . and this is the taste of her blood, a flavor that all her children instantly recognize whenever they taste it again, no matter how many years it has been.
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Ocean bliss
Date: 2005-07-31 06:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-31 06:14 am (UTC)Well, you're gorgeous.
Er. Your writing is. Your thoughts are. Things like that. Thank you.
I'm from the Boston area, and I've lived all of my life on the East Coast, so while I was admiring this on a 'what an absolutely wonderful experience' level, I was also having the slight "this person is an alien being to me" feeling, because the ocean? Is never far from me. I navigate by it. It's just... In me.
But that's part of why I enjoy LJ, because at its best, I get to find a lot of those slightly alien-but-not-alienating moments.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-31 06:16 am (UTC)But you've got to be careful. She can be a bully. When I visited Kauai she knocked me down and stuff sand into my swimsuit.
Therapy
Date: 2005-07-31 01:17 pm (UTC)The year before Olivia was born (July, 1994) we had a extended Martin Family trip for a week at Ventura Beach,California...north of L.A. . I was in awe of the ocean and hypnotized for a long time. I jumped "the waves" for hours earning burnt shoulders. I couldn't stop laughing during each jump. It was like a release of past heartache/pain and something my therapist would have taken 2 years to achieve. The ocean did it in 2 hours. My husband said to me later at night how he fell in love with me all over again watching me jump the waves.
The ocean is amazingly powerful thing and I am thrilled you had a beautiful experience. Too bad Rob didn't get to watch you, too!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-31 01:38 pm (UTC)I live fairly near the sea, and go there every summer, I love it, but had never thought of it like that!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-31 01:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-31 02:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-31 02:45 pm (UTC)I'm glad you had such a wonderful day.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-31 03:15 pm (UTC)A while ago I read Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions, and currently my husband is reading to me Traveling Mercies. I could see you writing a book like that - thoughts on faith, and wonder, and family, and life.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-31 07:24 pm (UTC)P.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-01 07:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-01 07:01 pm (UTC)THis is serendipitous for me, because I was in that ocean on that day too, a few miles from you (at Mission Bay, though on the ocean side). I didn't stay in long because it was very cold (coming there from Arizona, it was *very* cold) but being cold struck me as less painful than not getting in at all, so I rode a couple of waves and got the taste of ocean in my mouth.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-01 07:13 pm (UTC)I have a similar experience, but from the opposite perspective.
I live in an archipelagic country, and have lived near the ocean all my life. We don't have very many lakes here. I spent a few years in the US, but I spent it in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and was still fairly close to the sea.
A couple years ago, we hiked up Taal Volcano, which is located in the middle of a lake (which happens to be within the original volcano). We had to cross the lake in these small 10-seater boats, and as we dipped our hands in the waves and the spray misted our faces, I licked our lips and felt odd. Something was missing. I realized several minutes later that what was missing was the salt.